UNLESS you happen to be writing a lot of wind coverage in coastal areas, the hard market is little more than a memory. Increasingly, business is becoming more competitive, and this was reflected in the results of our 2006 American Agent & Broker Readership Survey. One of the more notable findings in this year's survey was a 10-point drop in the percentage of respondents who indicated their premium volume increased in the previous year. Other results indicated that agencies are trimming their staffs and making more use of automation in an effort to preserve the bottom line.

Forms for the 2006 survey were sent to 750 randomly selected readers; 342 returned the forms, a 46% response rate. Most of the readers (45%) are in areas they describe as "urban/suburban," while 23% characterize them as "suburban/rural" and 12% as "rural." Ten percent of the respondents called their territories simply "suburban," and another 10% labeled them as "urban."ProductionLast year, rates continued to soften for many insurance products, a fact strongly reflected in this year's survey results. The percentage of respondents who reported that their volume increased in the prior year was 69%, down a full 10 points from last year's figures and off 14 points from our 2004 survey. Also, while the percentage of respondents with premium volume greater than $20 million rose 3 points in this year's survey, to 21%, it was offset by a 3-point decline, to 11%, of those with volume of $10 million to $20 million.

The shift toward commercial-lines business that we've seen over the past two years continued. In this year's survey, 57% of the respondents report that they get the majority of their business from commercial lines, up 5 points from last year and 7 points from the year before.